Editor's Notes

Editor's Notes

If there is one issue in the latest education reform movement in Hong Kong that deserves much greater popular attention, it has to be teacher preparation and teacher empowerment. Teachers, the core force of the educational profession, are often assumed to have the readiness, if not the motivation and competence, to play the multi-roles expected of them in implementing the reforms, as change agents, as collaborators, as curriculum interpreters and as facilitators of learning in the new reform spirit. However, very few of these frontline teachers are members of the core team, which conceptualizes and formulate policy direction for the reforms. Most reforms, the latest one in Hong Kong is not an exception, are the brainchild of a team of community leaders and "gurus" in the field of education. They are commissioned to formulate policy and set direction FOR the teaching profession. Once done, it will be the teachers who have to do the 'donkey work'. However, are teachers ready? How prepared are teachers to respond to the demands and challenges of the new reforms and how 'competent' are they professionally to collaborate with the reforms? And indeed how, if at all, can reforms contribute to the professional development of teachers?

Those were the questions raised at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Special Education Society of Hong Kong held in May 2002. We entitled the Conference with a question: "Teachers: Rising up to (the challenges of) curriculum reforms?" (老師 - 課改中站起來的人？). The keynotes of the conference were presented by Dr. Ora Kwo and Dr. John Lian, both from the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong. Both of them see reforms as 'challenges' and 'opportunities for professional development' for teachers. Dr Kwo approached the issue from a rather philosophical perspective. Recognizing the pressure teachers were exposed to amidst a series of reform initiatives, she reminded teachers that such pressure could be a source of inspiration if it awoke their professional conscience (or passion 心火), directed them to see their true values and drove them to assert authority over professional decisions. Reform initiatives afford teachers with critical incidents, which are rich opportunities for professional learning and for uncovering the energy that is inside the teachers. The choice between upward shift and downward drift in professional development rests entirely on the teachers when they are caught in critical incidents. For those who missed the excellent presentation, I would strongly recommend them to read her paper version of her Conference speech in this Issue, "Building a Professional Spirit for the Teaching Force Amidst Reform Initiatives". Dr. Lian's presentation, incidentally, has already been converted to a paper version appearing in the 2001 Issue of the Forum. A brief report of the Annual Conference has also been prepared for our readers in this Issue. We invited the teacher representatives who chaired the four afternoon sessions, to share with us their 'upward shift' experience when challenged by school-based curriculum projects. Teachers in the four schools emerged from the projects, empowered and satisfied. We salute these 'warriors' of curriculum reforms because through them we can see the true worth of reforms in enhancing teacher professionalism.

A more detailed account of how teachers are empowered is reported by Fung Chi-man, Lian Ming-gon and Ng Kwok-hung (馮志文、 連明剛、伍國雄) in their paper, <建構以共通能力為本的校本課程：一間嚴重弱智學校的經驗> (Structuring a School-based Curriculum on the Basis of Generic Skills: An Experience of a School for Severe Mentally Handicapped Children). Faced with the daunting challenge of teaching the three most sophisticated generic skills, namely, communication, creativity and critical thinking, to severe mentally handicapped (SMH) children, teachers were engaged in a series of curriculum re-engineering and staff development processes, culminating in them being able to design and rationalize activities which inculcated the three skills. The decision of the school to utilize the reform initiative as an opportunity for staff empowerment ensured that the shift of teachers' professionalism surged upward rather than drifted downwards.

Teacher professionalism is also discussed in Peter Westwood's paper, "Are We Making Teaching Too Difficult? A Critical Look at 'Differentiation' in the Classroom". With growing diversity in the abilities of students in the classrooms, the pressure on teachers, already heavily burdened with heavy workload, to adopt and sustain the use of "differentiation", is becoming too much for teachers to shoulder. The trend is expected to continue, as Hong Kong is moving towards more inclusive classrooms to cater for all abilities, slow learners and gifted children included. Westwood casts doubts on the efficacy and applicability of such differentiation strategies as 'curriculum tailoring' and 'adapting instruction' if teachers are not equipped with the time and professional training to implement them. Differentiation may breed frustration and sense of guilt in the teachers and may cause the professional spirit of teachers to drift downward. In the context of teacher empowerment, mixed ability teaching must be based on teachers' strengths and existing expertise rather than on some radical changes in pedagogy. By over-stressing individual differences and fine individualized teaching, Westwood warns that, we might be making teaching too difficult for the average practitioner, resulting in discouraging than empowering them for further professional development.

The importance of professional development of teachers is also the theme of Nick Crawford's "The Path to Inclusive Education for Hong Kong: A Personal Reflection". No one is more qualified to discuss teacher development and teacher education in the context of inclusive education than Nick, whose career encompassed the founding (and heading), in sequence, of the Special Education Department in the University of Hong Kong and of the Centre for Special Needs and Studies in Inclusive Education in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The shift of his professional focus from segregation to integration epitomizes the evolution of educational service for special needs children in Hong Kong. After many years of solid development in special education professionalism, Hong Kong should be more ready to venture into the territories of integration and inclusive education. However, the top-down reform on integration, as Nick observes, has failed. He does not trace the reasons why it failed and how it could have been otherwise but draws attention to the importance of teacher preparation, leadership and management, action research and a collaborative culture among teachers if reforms in inclusive education are to bear fruit in Hong Kong. In other words, the success rests on the empowerment of teachers in both special and general education.

One of the means to empower teachers is to help them improve the efficacy of teaching with research data and resource. In this respect, Wong Yuen-yee and Peter Westwood's paper on "The Teaching and Management of Children With Autism" does just that. The report of the their study on practitioners' views on the teaching approaches on autism provides not only data on teachers' evaluation of the approaches but also some very valuable background information on the theories behind those approaches. With such information, teachers would surely be in a better position to plan effective teaching strategies for this very difficult group of special needs children.

Two years ago, we published two papers from overseas writers, one from the United States and one from Taiwan. We welcome the extension of our contributors' beyond Hong Kong. In fact, since then we have extended our panel of reviewers to include overseas scholars. We hope that such an extension will enable the Forum to serve as the venue for sharing by special education colleagues locally and abroad. We asked in 2000, "Will China and Macau be NEXT?". Their response is a loud and clear "YES!" For the first time, we received one paper each from Beijing and Macau.

The Beijing paper, <弱智兒童校本語文課程的研究、改革和開發> (The Research, Reform and Development of School-based Language Curriculum for Mentally Handicapped Children) by 許家成、林小玲、張文京、劉文珍 (Xu Jiacheng, Cecilia Siu-ling Lam, Zhang Wenjing & Liu Wenjin) is actually the extension of a Hong Kong Project to Mainland China. The paper reports the progress of a project, which is participated by 25 schools for the mentally handicapped children, that aims to convert to Putonghua and for use in schools in Mainland China, a language education package developed in Hong Kong (蘇周簡開、林小玲、謝宗義、李文貞，2000). As it is, it is the first time a curriculum reform for special schools is conducted in China and the impact of the research is expected to affect language teaching in special schools across China. Hong Kong is privileged in providing the model to China and the Forum is privileged in being the venue for publishing the paper.

We are also privileged to be publishing, perhaps for the first time, a service profile on special education in the Special Administration Region of Macau in the paper, <澳門特殊教育服務> (The Special Education Service in Macau) by 梁慧琪 (Vicky Wai-kei Leung). We see some shadows of Hong Kong's past and China's present (and perhaps Hong Kong's future!) in the development of special education in the Macau profile but we are certainly amazed by the pace of their service development. There seems no doubt that with Hong Kong and Macau now being part of China, the collaboration and interflow of professionalism among us will bring significant advancement in the development of service for special needs students across China. The Forum is ready to serve as the meeting place for front-line practitioners and academic professionals across Mainland China, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong to share their expertise and experiences in special education. Of course, for the Forum to be able to continue this service, one that we will strive to maintain, the support of our colleagues in both special and mainstream schools is vital.

Fortunately in the past years, such support has never been lacking. For the five years and seven issues that the Forum is in existence, we have been blessed with high quality papers with focus on the most current issues and up-to-date action researches. Equally well supported are the Annual Conferences of the Society. All our five conferences were well attended and commended. Support for the Society was also illustrated in the participation rate of the Society's recent survey into the curriculum development processes in special schools conducted in December 2001. The response rate to the questionnaire for the survey was well over 53%, out of which no less that 19 schools gave consent for the follow-up in-depth interviews. It was through the open and active sharing of data and information that we are able to capture for the first time the patterns of development in curriculum in special schools. While the full report will be due for submission to the sponsor, the Hong Kong Teachers' Centre, we have included an extract of the report for our readers' preview.

Finally, as we complete the fifth volume of the Forum, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the Editorial Board for so staunchly standing together to fight all odds in keeping this journal alive. Our vision and commitment is for the voice of professionals working for special needs education to be raised and heard. Five years ago, the need for such voices was there; five years later the need is even greater. Special education is entering a crucial stage of a shift in service paradigm. The launch of the new integration programme has meant that more and more special needs children are being placed in mainstream schools. With the solid service infrastructure for special education having been built around special schools over the years, special schools should be the professional base on which services for special needs in our students in mainstream schools be developed. The Society will cherish the role in maintaining this Forum to facilitate the interflow of ideas and resources for our colleagues in special and general education in our bid to share the responsibilities of special needs in our schools.

A. Tse

Reference

蘇周簡開、林小玲、謝宗義、李文貞(2000)，為有特殊教育需要的兒童而設的語文教育套件，《香港特殊教育論壇》第三期，第一號，第82頁